Safiya in Panama

Safiya
Harvey & Sue Death
Sun 5 Mar 2017 14:27

Safiya in Panama

After a short sail we arrived in Panama mainland 4 days ago. We are anchored in the historic bay of Portbello which was a key staging site for the Spanish in the 17th century as they plundered the gold, silver and other treasures of South America to take back to Spain. The British and Dutch fleets, pirates and privateers all tried to get in on the act with massive bloody battles (Sir Francis Drake allegedly lost his life here) and consequently the Spanish built huge fortifications all around the bay of which the ruins still exist today.

Today the town is quite sleepy and poor, we have tried every eating place (they are definitely not restaurants!) not quite fine dining but at least we lived to tell the tale!

After three weeks of catering on board our supplies were seriously depleted so we got together with two other boats and shared a taxi to Colon, about 40km to visit the supermarket. Colon is not considered safe for tourists to walk around, there were fully armed security guards in the supermarket! Our taxi waited outside and we stocked up with beer, wine and gin....and some food – all the essentials!

There are a number of live aboard boats in the bay because it is so sheltered and safe. We met one Spanish guy who lives on his boat – a 1978 built 37-foot Oyster! He was so excited to see 4 other Oysters in the bay and moved his boat next to ours so that we could photograph them together (see below). 2 Oysters 4 decades apart!

His boat has a lot of history; it took part in the disastrous 1979 Fastnet race in which 18 lives were lost. The boat which was named Trophy had 6 members of crew who all abandoned ship but tragically 3 of them were drowned. The other three were picked up from their life raft and the boat itself was found drifting 4 days later completely derigged. Since then it has had a number of owners but it is a testament to the build quality of Oyster that it could not just survive such an experience but to still be afloat and regularly sailing between Panama and Columbia nearly 40 years later

Off to the Marina on the Caribbean side of the canal later today to await our crossing which is scheduled for 16/17 March.

 

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